South Africa On Fire: Deadly Protests Overshadows Zuma Keynote Speech

Protesters angry at the lack of change and widespread poverty decades after White apartheid

AFRICANGLOBE – Incensed over the lack of electricity, water and houses that endures two decades after White apartheid ended in South Africa, shantytown residents near Tshwane rioted, torching a community hall, library and clinic.

The protest last week was one of about 94 this year in which a total of at least 10 people have died, according to the Tshwane-based Institute for Security Studies. The scenes of police firing tear gas and live ammunition at demonstrators armed with spears and stones may overshadow the state-of-the-nation address President Jacob Zuma delivers today to Parliament in Cape Town, three months before general elections.

The unrest comes as a recent opinion poll showed the ruling African National Congress may win less than 60 percent support in the May 7 elections for the first time since it took power in 1994. At the same time, more than 70,000 workers at Anglo American Platinum Ltd. (AMS), Impala Platinum Holdings and Lonmin Plc (LMI) are on strike for better wages.

“Whenever it is time for elections, a lot of protests happen because it is the only time people see the politicians’ faces in the community,” Bandile Mdlalose, general secretary of Abahlali baseMjondolo, a slum-dwellers’ advocacy group, said in a Feb. 10 phone interview from the coastal city of Durban. “People are not fools any more. They want delivery. They are getting annoyed of being misled by politicians.”

Wrong Direction

Almost half of South Africans say the country is moving in the wrong direction because of concerns about the cost of living and the nation’s ability to lure investment, research company Ipsos said in a statement yesterday.

The study, conducted among 3,564 adults in November, showed 48 percent of respondents were dissatisfied with the path the country is on, up from 29 percent in 2009, the year of the last general election. Thirty-four percent of people were satisfied, compared with 56 percent in 2009.

Support for Jacob Zuma’s leadership of the ANC plunged by 10 percentage points to 53 percent from a year earlier, according to Ipsos.

The rand has slumped 5.2 percent against the dollar this year, extending last year’s 19 percent plunge. Foreign investors have sold a net 21.3 billion rand ($1.9 billion) worth of the nation’s bonds and 5.6 billion in shares this year, according to data from JSE Ltd., which runs the nation’s stock exchange. The rand fell 0.5 percent to 11.0641 per dollar at 9:50 a.m. in Johannesburg.

“This is definitely an election speech for Zuma,” Abdul Waheed Patel, managing director of Ethicore Political Consulting, said by phone from Cape Town. “He will come in for criticism if he doesn’t acknowledge that there are certain parts of this country that are up in arms. I think he will defend people’s right to vent their frustrations about the government, while calling for law and order to prevail.”

South Africa’s Housing Backlog

Zuma, who’s seeking a second term, is expected to spell out plans to address housing and services backlogs. The ANC campaign manifesto released last month pledged to create 6 million jobs through a government employment program, provide 1 million homes for the poor and improve education and sanitation.

Official data shows the government has built more than 3.3 million free houses for the poor since 1994, connected 7 million homes to the electricity grid and made potable water available to 92 percent of the population of 53 million.

The worst of this year’s violence occurred last month when four people died in Mothotlung township near the town of Brits, about 100 kilometers (62 miles) north of Johannesburg during a protest over water shortages.

Six policemen have been suspended and 14 others sanctioned over the killings, which are being invested by the Independent Complaints Directorate, an oversight body.

“People feel they are more likely to be heard now than at any other time because the ANC has got to go and appease people and try and attract votes,” Georgina Alexander, a researcher at the South African Institute for Race Relations, said in an interview from Johannesburg.

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